ALTERNATE BOOKSTORE THAT PRESENTS THE "OTHER" INDIA
Jagdish Parikh
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From: fr...@goanews.ilbom.ernet.in
ALTERNATE BOOKSTORE THAT PRESENTS THE "OTHER" INDIA
By Pamela D'Mello
GOA: This is one address the postman knows best in the small
commercial town of Mapusa, in this region of swaying palms and
beaches along western India. Each day, the mail staff and office
workers shuffle in and out with piles of letters, papers and neat
packages.
Letters come in mainly from small and obscure towns, like Dhulia
in Maharashtra, Hazaribagh in Bihar, from Assam and occasional even
from remote locations like the distant Andaman islands.
OIB, or the Other India Bookstore, is an untypical experiment in
running an interesting book outlet from a tiny town known otherwise
for its fish-market and colourful Friday market-day, which lures many
visiting tourists in North Goa.
More importantly, OIB has, in its decade of operation, managed to
position itself as a leading outlet for books on just about any
"alternative" subject on India. It overcomes its small-town
limitation by operating mainly as a mail-order bookshop. This also
widens its reach tremendously.
OIB believes that it helps to act as a clearing house for books
presenting the reality of the "other", disempowered and much-
neglected India. Apart from offering a wide range of such material
under one roof, this outlet also helps to cater to the book-collector
and reader in small towns across the country or in distant locations
in other countries too.
"We can send our books anywhere in the world," a staffer tells a
visiting European tourist. Behind, on shelves, are books on India and
on a range of themes from the South, ranging from Masanobu Fukuoka"s
bestseller *The Natural Way of Farming* to one on international trade
in toxic substances and Renato Constantino's *The Philippines: A Past
Revisited*.
"We're doing well among the alternative bookshops... and for that
matter even when compared to regular book outlets," says Norma
Alvares, a former history lecturer and high court environmental
lawyer, who plays adviser to OIB.
This outlet has virtually the "entire range" of ideas-in-print
brought out by the voluntary organisation-alternative circuit, she
stresses. OIB's forte though, is environment, literature and
politics, as is obvious from neatly-stacked shelves in the small
Mapusa office.
Each year or so, OIB comes out with its new catalogue, which
reaches hundreds of persons and centres across the country. 1995's
catalogue has a fine-printed eight pages -- "not that many trees to
go around", explains the catalogue footnote. It has some 440 new
titles. Most are from India, but some come from other Third World
countries too.
Recent titles include Maneka Gandhi's diatribe against inhuman
cruelty towards animals. Then there's a strongly argued case by
Indian doctors Manu Kothari and Lopa Mehta, attempting to show that
"cancer research is a scandal, cancer therapy is a fraud, and that
the best therapy is not to trouble trouble until trouble troubles
you".
In another work, Rajni Bakshi lashes out against those trying to
appropriate Swami Vivekananda's legacy for anti-social ends. Writing
on the World Bank-IMF and its impact on India comes from a range of
quarters -- the Delhi-based Public Interest Research Group, Telugu
cartoonist Mohan and the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint of T.Nagi Reddy.
Environmental themes available include titles on water
management, Bhopal, the much-criticised draft forest bill, Himalayan
earthquakes and a hundred practical ways in which to lead a greener
lifestyle. Not all the themes are current-day "alternatives".
Some make attempts to trace solutions in the remote past -- like
a study of Asian traditions of thought, an ethnobiological
investigation into the place of plants in the Hindu sacred texts the
*Puranas*, and books emerging from a recent congress on traditional
science held at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai.
Critical voices come up in the shape of Srinivas Tilak's sharp
critque, *The Myth of Sarvodaya* (the movement led by Vinobha Bhave).
Leftists' work direct their ideological fire against the Shiv Sena
and the BJP-Sangh parivar (families).
Trinidade-born Anantanand Rambachan, meanwhile, introduces the
general reader to the basic themes of the religion that is Hinduism.
Other themes one comes across in this wide gamut deal with the tribal
*Santhal Theology of Liberation* and *A Reader in Dalit (Oppressed
Castes) Theology*.
Growing mushrooms, keeping bees, cooking or opting for organic
farming... all these get space too.
"It's even good business, simply because people are looking out
seriously for alternatives. Things like environment and alternative-
health options are at an absolute premium today. We sell our books
without pushing too much. People come searching for us," adds Ms.
Alvares proudly.
The OIB style of functioning is also alternative, in some ways.
Contrary to good business practice, this outlet doesn't necessary
demand advance payment from its distant and unknown clients across
India. "People always pay. We trust customers and so far we've not
been pushed out of business (due to that trust)," says Alvares.
Though many book-outlets find ready buyers in dusty, unread
library shelves, OIB is different. It feels that libraries have to be
"pampered" to convince them to buy books. Besides, since publications
are mostly brought out on a low cost, low-margin basis, OIB says it
simply can't cope with the high-prices-high-discounts policies
followed by others, for libraries.
In buying its books, OIB also makes sure it has a strong
selection from other Third World countries -- at local rates, not the
rates charged for exports. "We do so, so that we don't fall into the
American-export price circuit. That keeps our prices down (for
foreign books too)," says Norma Alvares.
OIB's booklist features titles dealing with the military's role
in Pakistan, Samir Amin's advocacy of the case for delinking from the
global economy, and children's books (like the enchanting "monkey
series" from China).
In fiction, there's Shaukat Siddiqi's *God's Own Land: A Novel of
Pakistan*, published a couple of years ago. Recently serialised on
Pakistan TV, the novel is set in the slums of Karachi and Lahore, and
is a tragic tale of a poor but respectable Pakistani family fallen on
hard times.
The choice is as wide as Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, contemporary
feminist Urdu poetry, and Nobel winner Octavio Paz's collected poems.
Malaysian lawyer-poet of Indian origin, Cecil Rajendra's biting
contemporary social comment in verse is also likely to appeal to a
reader anywhere in today's globalised world.
"Other-India" and alternative concerns comprise categories like
women's concerns, natural and traditional resources, human rights,
childrens' alternative stories, health, tribals and scheduled castes,
dalits, development-politics and, of course, the environment.
Other than retailing books collated from far and wide, OIB has
also begun publishing its own books. Its authors include dissident
former IMF economist from Grenada Davidson Budhoo and the
International People's Tribune of Japan. (Third World Network
Features).
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NOTE: OIB can be contacted at: ad...@oibs.ilbom.ernet.in
sayan bhattacharyya
Jagdish Parikh <jag...@igc.org> wrote:
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From: fr...@goanews.ilbom.ernet.in
ALTERNATE BOOKSTORE THAT PRESENTS THE "OTHER" INDIA
By Pamela D'Mello
OIB, or the Other India Bookstore, is an untypical experiment in
>running an interesting book outlet from a tiny town known otherwise
>for its fish-market and colourful Friday market-day, which lures many
>visiting tourists in North Goa.
Does anyone have the address of this bookstore?
Thanks.
-Sayan.
sayan bhattacharyya
sayan bhattacharyya <bhat...@skynet.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
Forwarded message from Fred Noronha:
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From: fr...@goanews.ilbom.ernet.in
It happens to be close to where I live, which is
OTHER INDIA BOOKSTORE
Above Mapusa Clinic
Mapusa 403507 Goa India
Ph: 832-263306 Fax/ph: 832-263305
Email: ad...@oibs.ilbom.ernet.in
Sayan, it might help if you post this address on
alt.india.progressive or any other suitable forum, just for
information. Rgds, Frederick <fr...@goanews.ilbom.ernet.in>
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